She tells how a violent heroine distorts the fate of not only her hated person, but also her own with a terrible atrocity.
Colchis princess Medea, granddaughter of the solar god Helios, fell in love with a Greek hero Jason, who sailed with the Argonauts to her homeland for the Golden Fleece. She helped Jason outwit her father, take possession of the rune and return to Hellas along a dangerous path.
Myths of ancient Greece. Medea. Love that brings death
Jason took Medea with him and married her. For the sake of her beloved, Medea even killed her own brother Absyrtus. Already in Greece, she helped Jason to destroy King Pelius, who deceived him and did not give up the royal throne in the city of Iolka in exchange for the Golden Fleece.
The son of Pelius Adrastus, who inherited the power of his father, expelled Jason and Medea from his possessions. They settled with King Creon in Corinth. Two sons were born to them. It seemed that Jason and Medea should have been happy. But fate did not promise any of them happiness. Captivated by the beauty of Creon's daughter, Glauca, Jason betrayed the oaths of allegiance given to Medea in Colchis; he betrayed the one with which he accomplished a great feat. Jason decided to marry Glaucus, and King Creon agreed to give his daughter as a wife to the famous hero.
When Medea found out about Jason's betrayal, despair took possession of her. She still loved Medea Jason. As if turned into a soulless stone, Medea sat, immersed in sadness. She did not eat, did not drink, did not listen to words of consolation. Little by little, violent anger took possession of Medea. Her indomitable spirit could not be humbled. She, the daughter of the king of Colchis, could not bear the triumph of her rival! No, Medea is terrible in anger, her revenge must be terrible in its cruelty. O! Medea will take revenge on Jason, Glaucus, and her father Creon!
Everyone curses Medea in violent anger. She curses her children, curses Jason. Medea suffers and prays to the gods that they immediately take away her life with a lightning strike. What, besides revenge, is left for her in life? Death calls Medea, this will be the end of her torment, death will free her from grief. Why did Jason act so cruelly, with her - with the one who saved him, helped, by lulling the dragon, to get the golden fleece, who, for the sake of his salvation, lured her brother into an ambush, killed Pelias?
If you need DETAILED statement of this myth, go to the page "Campaign of the Argonauts". There you can get acquainted with the history of the origin of the legend of swimming for the Golden Fleece and go to links with a detailed presentation of its various episodes. Our list of pages dedicated to myths and epic will be constantly updated
The myth of the golden fleece (summary)
According to the Greek myth, in the city of Orchomenus (Boeotia region), the king Afamant once ruled the ancient tribe of the Minians. From the goddess of the clouds, Nephele, he had a son, Phrixus, and a daughter, Helle. These children were hated by the second wife of Athamas, Ino. In a lean year, Ino tricked her husband into sacrificing them to the gods to end the famine. However, at the last moment, Frix and Hella were saved from under the priest's knife by a ram with a golden fleece (wool), sent by their mother Nephele. The children sat on a ram, and he carried them through the air far to the north. During the flight, Hella fell into the sea and drowned in the strait, which since then has been called the Hellespont (Dardanelles) by her name. Frix was taken by a ram to Colchis (now Georgia), where he was raised as a son by the local king Eet, the son of the god Helios. Eet sacrificed the flying ram to Zeus, and hung his golden fleece in the grove of the god of war Ares, placing a mighty dragon as a watchman.
Argonauts (Golden Fleece). Soyuzmultfilm
Meanwhile, other descendants of Athamas built the port of Iolcus in Thessaly. Athamas' grandson, Aeson, who reigned in Iolca, was deposed from the throne by his half-brother, Pelius. Fearing the machinations of Pelias, Aeson hid his son, Jason, in the mountains from the wise centaur Chiron. Jason, who soon became a strong and courageous young man, lived with Chiron until he was 20 years old. The centaur taught him the arts of war and the science of medicine.
The leader of the Argonauts, Jason
When Jason was 20 years old, he went to Iolk to demand that Pelius return to him, the heir to the legitimate king, power over the city. With his beauty and strength, Jason immediately attracted the attention of the citizens of Iolk. He visited his father's house, and then went to Pelius and presented him with his demand. Pelius pretended to agree to cede the throne, but made it a condition that Jason go to Colchis and get the golden fleece there: there were rumors that the prosperity of the descendants of Athamas depended on the possession of this shrine. Pelius hoped that his young rival would die on this expedition.
After leaving Corinth, Medea settled in Athens, becoming the wife of King Aegeus, father of the great hero Theseus. According to one version of the myth, the former leader of the Argonauts, Jason, committed suicide following the death of his children. According to another mythical story, he joylessly dragged out the rest of his life in disastrous wanderings, finding no permanent shelter anywhere. Passing once through the Isthmus Isthmus, Jason saw the dilapidated Argo, which had once been pulled out here by the Argonauts to the seashore. The weary wanderer lay down to rest in the shade of Argo. While he slept, the stern of the ship collapsed and buried Jason under its debris.
Vakhtangov them. theater about the play "Medea"Medea
On the eve of the anniversary season, the artistic director of the theater R. Tuminas addressed the team: “I want to awaken in you the need to independently search for plays, directing, the need to try, experiment, dare, make mistakes, create, win.” This call was heard and supported by the troupe. This is how Y. Edlis's "Farewell Tour" appeared and rehearsals of "Medea" by Anuy began (director - M. Tsitrinyak, starring - Y. Rutberg).
What prompted you to turn to the tragedy of Anui? - Time, our days with a globally impending lack of communication that destroys the individual, society, culture, politics - on the one hand, and on the other - an attempt to ignore this problem, hence the irresistible craving for entertainment, shows, thoughtless fun. It's alarming that modern world does not record the history of his illness - xenophobia, racism, aggression are raising their heads. Against the backdrop of a catastrophic decline in morality, cynicism, the desire for well-being, the power of money, a person is being destroyed. To be different, to defend independence, not to join the philosophy of “success”, to reject the seductive postulate “I am like everyone else”, to overcome the philosophy of philistinism and to realize that faceless equality is disastrous - this is the destiny of the strong.
"Medea" by Anuija descended from Euripides' cothurn, it is closer, more understandable to us, its vocabulary is modern. The dialogue of the heroes of the tragedy, as it were, moves in a spiral, in circles - from the past to the present and back to the past. The creators of the play tried to isolate the meaning from the flow of words and events.
Yulia Rutberg's Medea lives not today, but yesterday, she has no tomorrow. Her memory indestructibly returns to its roots when she, the daughter of the king of Colchis, stole the Golden Fleece for the sake of her beloved. For Medea, Jason's betrayal is not only the trampling of love, it is the destruction of her living space, the harmony of her soul.
There can be no winner in their duel. In martial arts, different worlds collided, where duty, honor and “common sense” are antagonists. Death is the boundary of their enmity and the choice of it is the highest manifestation of the freedom of the individual.
Medea goes into oblivion along with the children, because she cannot leave them to such Jason, who thrives in the world of philistine indifference he created. It will not allow them to become hostages of the vulgar philosophy of well-fed equality. Death is not Medea's defeat, but her moral victory.
In the tragedy of Anui, two Worlds collided - Medea and Jason, freedom and the philistine standard of life.
The final scene is a metaphor. The figure of Medea rhymes with the mythical Nike, the symbol of Victory.
The duration of the performance is 2 hours 15 minutes without intermission.
Stage director - Mikhail Tsitrinyak
Set Designer - Maria Rybasova
Costume designer - Victoria Sevryukova
Lighting Designer - Maya Shavdatuashvili
Translation - Valentin Dmitriev
Composers - Boris Kiner, Alexander Prokopovich
Actors and performers:
Medea - Julia Rutberg
Jason - Grigory Antipenko
Creon - Andrey Zaretsky
Nurse - Inna Alabina, Natalia Moleva
Boy - Vasily Simonov, Vladimir Logvinov, Vasily Tsygantsov
Guards - Fedor Vorontsov, Vladislav Gandrabura, Vasily Simonov, Yuri Polyak, Valery Ushakov,
Andrey Zlobin, Pavel Yudin, Vladimir Shuliev
Priestesses - Anastasia Vasilyeva, Irina Kalistratova, Elena Melnikova, Nino Kantaria, Ekaterina Kramzina,
Alexandra Cherkasova, Polina Kuzminskaya, Anna Kalabina, Natalya Kiyko, Lada Churovskaya, Adelina Gizatullina
Content: There is a myth about the hero Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. He was the hereditary king of the city of Iolka in Northern Greece, but his elder relative, the imperious Pelias, seized power in the city, and in order to return it, Jason had to accomplish a feat: with his fellow heroes on the Argo ship, sail to the eastern edge of the earth and there , in the country of Colchis, get the sacred Golden Fleece, guarded by a dragon. About this voyage, Apollonius of Rhodes later wrote the poem "Argonautica".
Ruled in Colchis mighty king, son of the Sun; his daughter, the sorceress Medea, fell in love with Jason, they swore fidelity to each other, and she saved him. First, she gave him witchcraft potions, which helped him first to endure the test feat - to plow arable land on fire-breathing bulls - and then to put the dragon's guardian to sleep. Secondly, when they sailed from Colchis, Medea, out of love for her husband, killed her own brother and scattered pieces of his body along the shore; the Colchians pursuing them lingered, burying him, and could not overtake the fugitives. Thirdly, when they returned to Iolk, Medea, in order to save Jason from the treachery of Pelias, invited the daughters of Pelias to slaughter their old father, promising after that to resurrect him young. And they slaughtered their father, but Medea renounced her promise, and the parricide daughters fled into exile. However, Jason failed to get the kingdom of Iolk: the people rebelled against the foreign sorceress, and Jason with Medea and two young sons fled to Corinth. The old Corinthian king, having looked closely, offered him his daughter as a wife and the kingdom with her, but, of course, so that he would divorce the sorceress. Jason accepted the offer: perhaps he himself was already beginning to be afraid of Medea. He celebrated a new wedding, and the king sent an order to Medea to leave Corinth. On a solar chariot harnessed by dragons, she fled to Athens, and told her children: “Give your stepmother my wedding gift: an embroidered cloak and a gold-woven headband.” The cloak and bandage were saturated with fiery poison: the flames engulfed the young princess, the old king, and the royal palace. The children rushed to seek salvation in the temple, but the Corinthians, in a rage, stoned them to death. What happened to Jason, no one knew for sure.
It was hard for the Corinthians to live with the notoriety of child-killers and wicked people. Therefore, the legend says, they begged the Athenian poet Euripides to show in the tragedy that it was not they who killed the Jason children, but Medea herself, their own mother. It was difficult to believe in such horror, but Euripides made him believe it.
“Oh, if those pines from which the ship on which Jason sailed had never collapsed ...” - the tragedy begins. This is Medea's old nurse speaking. Her mistress has just learned that Jason is marrying a princess, but does not yet know that the king tells her to leave Corinth. Behind the scenes, the moans of Medea are heard: she curses Jason, herself, and the children. “Take care of the children,” says the nurse to the old teacher. The choir of Corinthian women is in alarm: Medea would not have called out a worse misfortune! “Terrible royal pride and passion! better world and measure.
The groans ceased, Medea goes out to the choir, she says firmly and courageously. “My husband was everything to me - I have nothing more. O wretched fate of a woman! They give her to a strange house, pay a dowry for her, buy her a master; it hurts her to give birth, as in a battle, and to leave is a shame. You are here, you are not alone, but I am alone. The old Corinthian king comes forward to meet her: immediately, in front of everyone, let the sorceress go into exile! "Alas! hard to know more than others:
from this fear, from this hatred. Give me at least a day to decide where I should go. The king gives her a day to term. "Blind man! she says after him. "I don't know where I'm going, but I know I'll leave you dead." Who - you? The choir sings a song about universal untruth: oaths are violated, rivers flow backwards, men are more insidious than women!
Jason enters; an argument begins. “I saved you from the bulls, from the dragon, from Pelius - where are your oaths? Where should I go? In Colchis - the ashes of a brother; in Iolka - the ashes of Pelias; your friends are my enemies. Oh Zeus, why can we recognize fake gold, but not a fake person! Jason replies: “It was not you who saved me, but the love that moved you. I am counting on this salvation: you are not in wild Colchis, but in Greece, where they know how to sing glory to me and to you. My new marriage is for the sake of children: born from you, they are not full, and in my new house they will be happy. - “Happiness is not needed at the cost of such an insult!” “Oh, why can’t people be born without women! there would be less evil in the world." The choir sings a song about wicked love.
Medea will do her job, but where will she go then? Here the young Athenian king Aegeus appears: he went to the oracle to ask why he had no children, and the oracle answered incomprehensibly. “You will have children,” says Medea, “if you give me shelter in Athens.” She knows that Aegeus will have a son on a foreign side - the hero Theseus; knows that this Theseus will drive her out of Athens; he knows that later Aegeus will die from this son - he will throw himself into the sea with false news of his death; but is silent. "Let me die if I let you drive you out of Athens!" - says Egey, Medea doesn't need anything else now. Aegeus will have a son, and Jason will have no children - neither from his new wife, nor from her, Medea. "I will uproot the Jason family!" - and let descendants be horrified. The choir sings a song in praise of Athens.
Medea reminded of the past, secured the future - now her concern is about the present. The first is about her husband. She calls Jason, asks for forgiveness - “we women are like that!” - flatters, tells the children to hug their father: “I have a cloak and bandage, the legacy of the Sun, my ancestor; let them bring them to your wife!” - “Of course, and God grant them a long life!” Medea's heart shrinks, but she forbids herself pity. The choir sings: "Something will happen!"
The second concern is about children. They carried the presents and returned; Medea cries over them for the last time. “I gave birth to you, I nursed you, I see your smile - is it really the last time? Dear hands, dear lips, royal faces - won't I spare you? The father stole your happiness, the father deprives you of your mother; I will pity you - my enemies will laugh; don't be this! Pride is strong in me, and anger is stronger than me; decided!” The choir sings: “Oh, it’s better not to give birth to children, not to lead at home, to live in thought with the Muses - are women weaker in mind than men?”
The third concern is about the homeowner. A messenger runs in: "Save yourself, Medea: both the princess and the king died from your poison!" - “Tell, tell, the more, the sweeter!” The children entered the palace, everyone admires them, the princess rejoices at the dresses, Jason asks her to be a good stepmother for the little ones. She promises, she puts on an outfit, she shows off in front of a mirror; suddenly the color escapes from the face, foam appears on the lips, the flame covers her curls, the burnt meat shrinks on the bones, the poisoned blood oozes like resin from the bark. The old father, screaming, falls on her body, the dead body wraps around him like ivy; he tries to shake it off, but he himself becomes dead, and both, charred, lie dead. “Yes, our life is just a shadow,” the messenger concludes, “and there is no happiness for people, but there are successes and failures.”
Now there is no turning back; if Medea does not kill the children herself, others will kill them. “Do not hesitate, heart: only a coward hesitates. Be silent, memories: now I do not mother them, I will cry tomorrow. Medea leaves the stage, the choir sings in horror: “The ancestor sun and the supreme Zeus! hold her hand, don't let murder multiply by murder!" Two children's groans are heard, and it's all over.
Jason bursts in: “Where is she? on earth, in the underworld, in the sky? Let her be torn to pieces, if only I could save the children!” "It's too late, Jason," the choir tells him. The palace opens, above the palace - Medea on the Sun chariot with dead children in her arms. “You are a lioness, not a wife! Jason screams. “You are the demon with which the gods struck me!” "Call whatever you want, but I hurt your heart." - "And your own!" - "My pain is light to me when I see yours." - "Your hand killed them!" - "And before that - your sin." - "So let the gods execute you!" "Gods do not hear perjurers." Medea disappears, Jason calls out to Zeus in vain. The chorus ends the tragedy with the words:
“What you thought was true does not come true, / And the gods find ways for the unexpected - / Such is what we experienced” ...
Conflict: the internal tragic struggle and the psychology of the tormented soul of the heroine are shown.
The image of the struggle of feelings and internal discord is something new that Euripides introduced into Attic tragedy. Along with this - numerous discussions about the family, marriage, fatherhood, about the fatality of passions: not only Medea argues, but also the choir, and even the old nurse.
Images: Medea is a “scientific” woman, as if she had gone through the school of sophists, strong in spirit, this bright, exceptional individuality, considers everything suspicious for herself, can dare to do anything, does not recognize any barriers. All life for her is in Jason: for his sake she committed crimes; for his sake she made her existence unbearable. Having saved her husband many times, she considers herself entitled to demand fidelity from him. Insult in love, from her point of view, is the greatest offense (265 ff.), and revenge for it should be the most merciless. Already at the very beginning of the tragedy, her faithful servants foresee that she will not stop at the most terrible deed. Brought up in a free environment - in a barbarian country, under the influence of passion, she becomes a demonic person. She goes to deceit, to humiliating flattery, just to get her way. Jealousy and revenge in the image of Medea are brought to the highest intensity. The poet broke with the traditional version of the myth of the murder of children by the Corinthians in order to show the villainy of the mother in all horror. independent, strong, proud woman (not like everyone else), but at the same time a loving mother (changed her mind 4 times) - The image of the heroine who commits a crime, moreover - consciously but evoking sympathy from the author.
Jason: a cynical talker who proves why he should leave Medea, but in the end is pitiful. Jason in Medea also belongs to the category of egoists and ambitious people, but of a smaller kind. Insignificant in itself, he is the type of careerist. Having accomplished feats and saved only thanks to his wife, he easily abandons her for the sake of the king's daughter when he sees that with the help of his wife he can achieve nothing more. At the same time, he is still hypocritical in front of Medea, proving that he enters into a new marriage for her sake and for the sake of children; he, like a sophist, in the vulgar sense of the word, claims that he did her good by bringing her from the barbarian land to Greece, to a cultured country. His weak point is children. But here, too, he remains an egoist, since he does not think about the fate of the children, but only about procreation. Medea and strikes him in this sensitive place. As a result, he remains destroyed, lonely, without any hope for the future.
Approximate year of writing:
431 BC e.
Reading time:
Description of the work:
The tragedy "Medea" was written by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides. The story is based on the myths about the Argonauts' campaign. It is worth noting that Euripides changed the generally accepted legend, presenting Medea as the culprit of the death of children.
In the year of writing this tragedy, Euripides competed at one of the holidays in Ancient Greece with other playwrights, Euphorion and Sophocles. According to the results of the competition, Euripides took the last place.
We bring to your attention a summary of this tragedy.
There is a myth about the hero Jason, the leader of the Argonauts. He was the hereditary king of the city of Iolka in Northern Greece, but power in the city was seized by his elder relative, the imperious Pelius, and in order to return it, Jason had to accomplish a feat: with his fellow heroes on the Argo ship, sail to the eastern edge of the earth and there , in the country of Colchis, get the sacred Golden Fleece, guarded by a dragon. About this voyage, Apollonius of Rhodes later wrote the poem "Argonautica".
In Colchis, a mighty king, the son of the Sun, ruled; his daughter, the sorceress Medea, fell in love with Jason, they swore fidelity to each other, and she saved him. First, she gave him witchcraft potions, which helped him first to endure the test feat - to plow arable land on fire-breathing bulls - and then to put the dragon's guardian to sleep. Secondly, when they sailed from Colchis, Medea, out of love for her husband, killed her own brother and scattered pieces of his body along the shore; the Colchians pursuing them lingered, burying him, and could not overtake the fugitives. Thirdly, when they returned to Iolk, Medea, in order to save Jason from the treachery of Pelias, invited the daughters of Pelias to slaughter their old father, promising after that to resurrect him young. And they slaughtered their father, but Medea renounced her promise, and the parricide daughters fled into exile. However, Jason failed to get the kingdom of Iolk: the people rebelled against the foreign sorceress, and Jason with Medea and two young sons fled to Corinth. The old Corinthian king, having looked closely, offered him his daughter as a wife and the kingdom with her, but, of course, so that he divorced the sorceress. Jason accepted the offer: perhaps he himself was already beginning to be afraid of Medea. He celebrated a new wedding, and the king sent an order to Medea to leave Corinth. On a solar chariot harnessed by dragons, she fled to Athens, and told her children: “Give your stepmother my wedding gift: an embroidered cloak and a gold-woven headband.” The cloak and bandage were saturated with fiery poison: the flames engulfed the young princess, the old king, and the royal palace. The children rushed to seek salvation in the temple, but the Corinthians, in a rage, stoned them to death. What happened to Jason, no one knew for sure.
It was hard for the Corinthians to live with the notoriety of child-killers and wicked people. Therefore, the legend says, they begged the Athenian poet Euripides to show in the tragedy that it was not they who killed the Jason children, but Medea herself, their own mother. It was difficult to believe in such horror, but Euripides made him believe it.
“Oh, if those pines from which the ship on which Jason sailed had never collapsed ...” - the tragedy begins. This is Medea's old nurse speaking. Her mistress has just learned that Jason is marrying a princess, but does not yet know that the king tells her to leave Corinth. Behind the scenes, the moans of Medea are heard: she curses Jason, herself, and the children. “Take care of the children,” says the nurse to the old teacher. The choir of Corinthian women is in alarm: Medea would not have called out a worse misfortune! “Terrible royal pride and passion! better peace and measure.
The groans ceased, Medea goes out to the choir, she says firmly and courageously. “My husband was everything to me - I have nothing more. O wretched fate of a woman! They give her away to a strange house, pay a dowry for her, buy her a master; it hurts her to give birth, as in a battle, and to leave is a shame. You are here, you are not alone, but I am alone. The old Corinthian king comes forward to meet her: immediately, in front of everyone, let the sorceress go into exile! "Alas! hard to know more than others:
from this fear, from this hatred. Give me at least a day to decide where I should go. The king gives her a day. "Blind man! she says after him. "I don't know where I'm going, but I know I'll leave you dead." Who - you? The choir sings a song about universal untruth: oaths are violated, rivers flow backwards, men are more insidious than women!
Jason enters; an argument begins. “I saved you from the bulls, from the dragon, from Pelius - where are your oaths? Where should I go? In Colchis - the ashes of a brother; in Iolka - the ashes of Pelias; your friends are my enemies. Oh Zeus, why can we recognize fake gold, but not a fake person! Jason replies: “It was not you who saved me, but the love that moved you. I am counting on this salvation: you are not in wild Colchis, but in Greece, where they know how to sing glory to me and to you. My new marriage is for the sake of children: born from you, they are not full, and in my new house they will be happy. - “Happiness is not needed at the cost of such an insult!” “Oh, why can’t people be born without women! there would be less evil in the world." The choir sings a song about evil love.
Medea will do her job, but where will she go then? Here the young Athenian king Aegeus appears: he went to the oracle to ask why he had no children, and the oracle answered incomprehensibly. “You will have children,” says Medea, “if you give me shelter in Athens.” She knows that Aegeus will have a son on a foreign side - the hero Theseus; knows that this Theseus will drive her out of Athens; he knows that later Aegeus will die from this son - he will throw himself into the sea with false news of his death; but is silent. "Let me die if I let you drive you out of Athens!" - says Egey, Medea doesn't need anything else now. Aegeus will have a son, and Jason will have no children - neither from his new wife, nor from her, Medea. "I will uproot the Jason family!" - and let descendants be horrified. The choir sings a song in praise of Athens.
Medea reminded of the past, secured the future - now her concern is about the present. The first is about her husband. She calls Jason, asks for forgiveness - “we women are like that!” - flatters, tells the children to hug their father: “I have a cloak and bandage, the legacy of the Sun, my ancestor; let them bring them to your wife!” - “Of course, and God grant them a long life!” Medea's heart shrinks, but she forbids herself pity. The choir sings: “Something will happen!”
The second concern is about children. They carried the presents and returned; Medea cries over them for the last time. “I gave birth to you, I nursed you, I see your smile - is it really the last time? Dear hands, dear lips, royal faces - won't I spare you? The father stole your happiness, the father deprives you of your mother; I will pity you - my enemies will laugh; don't be this! Pride is strong in me, and anger is stronger than me; decided!” The choir sings: “Oh, it’s better not to give birth to children, not to lead at home, to live in thought with the Muses - are women weaker in mind than men?”
The third concern is about the homeowner. A messenger runs in: "Save yourself, Medea: both the princess and the king died from your poison!" - “Tell, tell, the more, the sweeter!” The children entered the palace, everyone admires them, the princess rejoices at the dresses, Jason asks her to be a good stepmother for the little ones. She promises, she puts on an outfit, she shows off in front of a mirror; suddenly the color escapes from the face, foam appears on the lips, the flame covers her curls, the burnt meat shrinks on the bones, the poisoned blood oozes like resin from the bark. The old father, screaming, clings to her body, the dead body wraps around him like ivy; he tries to shake it off, but he himself becomes dead, and both, charred, lie dead. “Yes, our life is just a shadow,” the messenger concludes, “and there is no happiness for people, but there are successes and failures.”
Now there is no turning back; if Medea does not kill the children herself, others will kill them. “Do not hesitate, heart: only a coward hesitates. Be silent, memories: now I do not mother them, I will cry tomorrow. Medea leaves the stage, the choir sings in horror: “The ancestor sun and the supreme Zeus! hold her hand, don't let murder multiply by murder!" Two children's groans are heard, and it's all over.
Jason bursts in: “Where is she? on earth, in the underworld, in the sky? Let her be torn to pieces, if only I could save the children!” "It's too late, Jason," the choir tells him. The palace opens, above the palace - Medea on the Sun chariot with dead children in her arms. “You are a lioness, not a wife! Jason screams. “You are the demon with which the gods struck me!” "Call whatever you want, but I hurt your heart." - "And your own!" - "My pain is light to me when I see yours." - "Your hand killed them!" - "And before that - your sin." - "So let the gods execute you!" "Gods do not hear perjurers." Medea disappears, Jason calls out to Zeus in vain. The chorus ends the tragedy with the words:
“What you thought was true does not come true, / And the gods find ways for the unexpected - / Such is what we experienced” ...
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